Scholarship in Action

The synthesis of scholarship and action conjures up a formidable force — it's a combination that serves as a commanding catalyst for exploring new depths of knowledge and then advancing those discoveries into the world.

The School of Law boasts an impressive faculty, whose scholarly achievements and dedication to the field of law exemplify "Scholarship in Action." Professors at the law school repeatedly supersede scholastic expectations by intertwining academic excellence with enterprising advocacy to advance academic research into real-world applications.

From educating society about America's most pressing legal issues to urging state legislators to enact groundbreaking laws to advocating for the rights of those in need, the scope of scholarship at the School of Law is both expansive and enterprising. Our faculty consists of superb scholars who embark on wide-ranging academic pursuits from an array of vantage points to catalyze discovery and inspire change. Even the most theoretical scholarship, with no immediate apparent application, can yield far-reaching consequences.

The following stories serve as snapshots, chosen from the School of Law's collection of consequential scholarship, showcasing the tangible impact that can result from the combination of scholarship and action. Here is an inside look at four of the many law school professors whose latest and lifelong research exemplify "Scholarship in Action."

As a nationally renowned expert on health care law, Professor Thomas L. Greaney has devoted the past two decades to examining the evolution of health care antitrust law and to serving as an advocate for consumers. He directly impacts national policy and legislation by frequently providing expert testimony to the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice on how competition, law and policy impact health care markets. Most recently, he offered his expert advice — backed with a comprehensive plan of action — to the next President of the United States about America's most pressing health care issues.

Thirty years ago, Professor Roger L. Goldman — the nation's foremost expert on police licensing and decertification laws — began his "crusade" to help states write and adopt laws that remove the license or certificate of police officers who engage in serious misconduct. Back then, 15 states were without decertification laws. Now only six states remain. Most recently, his efforts have been focused on fighting for a national databank to track repeated incidents of misconduct to prevent bad officers from moving state to state.

Professor Eric J. Miller's legal career has been devoted to understanding the real-life application of criminal law by studying how race and economic status affect criminal law in urban communities. Recently, he has been focused on raising awareness and educating the media about the downside of drug courts and how these therapeutic courts over-criminalize urban and minority communities.

Professor Sidney D. Watson advocates for affordable health care for Missouri farmers and ranchers. Throughout her career, Watson's community-based research has directly impacted state and federal legislation by offering solid solutions to pressing health care issues, from improved access to Medicaid services for people with disabilities to advocating health care access for the homeless.

Whether it's impacting national health care legislation that affects all Americans or advocating for affordable access to health care for small Missouri farmers, these four professors showcase "Scholarship in Action" by exemplifying how scholarly pursuits can positively impact society.

Advancing Antitrust Health Care Reform

Professor Thomas L. Greaney explains that one of the benefits of working as a law professor is the ability to always assert what you believe and to unequivocally express where you think the law should stand on the most pressing legal issues of our time.

"I entered academia because I believe that as a law professor, I can be an even stronger voice for consumers," says Greaney, Chester A. Myers Professor of Law and director of the Center for Health Law Studies. "Health care antitrust policy and health reform issues have a direct impact on people's lives and well being. As a law professor, I have the opportunity to write about and advocate for the causes I truly believe in."

Advocating for consumers on some of America's most pressing health care legislation — including hospital mergers, physician network arrangements and pharmaceutical and intellectual property issues — has long marked Professor Greaney's legal career.

Greaney — a nationally renowned expert on health care law — has devoted the past two decades to examining the evolution of health care antitrust law. He frequently provides expert testimony to the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice on how competition, law and policy impact health care markets. He has also served as a consultant for the Missouri Attorney General's Office and has testified at legislative hearings in Jefferson City.

Most recently, he's offered his expert advice, backed by a comprehensive plan of action, to the next President of the United States about America's leading antitrust health care issues — an effort which undoubtedly serves as the ultimate example of "Scholarship in Action."

Greaney partnered with a handful of the nation's leading antitrust experts to author The Next Antitrust Agenda, which offers an in-depth look at the state of enforcement of the country's antitrust laws. The book, published by the American Antitrust Institute, will serve as a transition report to President Barack Obama by detailing steps on how to improve and vigorously reform a variety of antitrust issues that the institute asserts were neglected by previous administrations.

In the book and at presentations in Washington, D.C., Greaney explains that although the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice have appropriately dedicated substantial resources to health care antitrust enforcement, lax and non-existent enforcement have resulted in high concentrations or cartelization in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, hospitals and health insurance.

"The next administration should pay particular attention to preventing further erosion of competition in those areas while improving effectiveness in detecting, litigating and obtaining remedies involving abuses by providers of health services," he recommends.

Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Greaney also organized a group of law professors and scholarly experts who wrote editorials addressing health care reform issues for some of the nation's most influential newspapers.

Greaney will head back to Washington, D.C. for the spring semester to continue his scholarly pursuits by embarking on a sabbatical to analyze the new infrastructure of Medicare and congressional efforts to reform the health care system. This research will examine the sweeping changes to the nation's 50-year-old health care program by the landmark Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and the fundamental changes that resulted from the move to a more private market approach to health care.
Greaney plans to investigate how, in attempting to restructure the health system, Congress plans to deal with the recent lessons of competition in health markets when it seeks to impose fundamental changes in how care is paid for and delivered.

"My goal is to harness multi-disciplinary approaches to critically examine health care issues of vital concern to the legal, medical and public policy communities," he says. "Examining Medicare — the central nervous system of America's health care system — fits the bill perfectly."

The program covers 35 million elderly and disabled citizens, provides 30 percent of hospital revenues, finances medical education and research and supports indigent care.

"As the dominant player in the health care market place, Medicare policy strongly influences the structure of provider markets and the services they supply while shouldering much of the burden of monitoring our health care system for fraud and quality problems," he says.

Greaney's research on health care reform will take him back to Capitol Hill, where he began his career as a consumer advocate in the early 1970s when he took his first job as a legislative assistant. He went on to work as a law clerk for the Federal Communications Commission from 1976-1978. He was then hired as a senior trial attorney and finally served as an assistant chief in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, in which he spent a decade supervising civil and criminal antitrust health care litigation and assisted in policy formulation and legislative issues.

Professor Greaney's extensive body of scholarly work includes articles published in some of the nation's most prestigious legal and medical journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, the American Journal of Law and Medicine and the Cornell Law Journal.

Greaney is repeatedly sought by reporters at leading news publications — such as The New York Times and The Washington Post — as well as regional and local newspapers and radio and television stations to comment on health care reform and legislation.

He recently explained in an editorial featured in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch "the nation is in the process of learning — the hard way — that blind reliance on marketplace forces to protect consumers and advance the public interest is risky business."

The bottom line: Competition in health care requires regulation.

"The deregulatory fervor that led Congress to exempt derivatives and baskets full of other complicated investment vehicles from oversight and to regulate investment banks lightly has produced catastrophic results," he explains.

Greaney has long argued for competition policy and has seen plenty of evidence that competition can produce lower-cost, higher-quality results. But he explains that the market also requires standards and supervision to counteract the peculiarities of health care insurance and delivery and to allow consumers to make choices that give insurers and providers the incentive to offer the best mix of price, quality and innovation.

"As a law professor, my main contribution is to provide analysis on why America's health care system has failed in the past," Greaney says. "By analyzing the failures and successes of past health care reform, I can offer expert knowledge and constructive advice to Congress and other government agencies to improve health care for all Americans."

Preventing Police Misconduct

Professor Roger L. Goldman will never know how many victims he has protected.

For the past three decades, Goldman — the nation's foremost expert on police licensing and license revocation laws — has been helping states write and adopt laws that remove the license or certificate of officers who engage in serious misconduct.

"I represent the unknown client," he explains. "I am looking to stop a police officer who has done something wrong from doing it again. There isn't a victim yet. Unlike a lawyer, who represents a client seeking damages for misconduct, my work doesn't focus on past problems — it focuses on righting future wrongs. I will never know whom I've protected."

Goldman, the Callis Family Professor of Law, explains decertification treats the police like any other professionals — doctors, lawyers or teachers. If minimum standards of performance are not met, the person loses the privilege of continuing in the profession. "If a barber cuts someone's ear off, he's out," Goldman explains. "It's simply holding police officers to the same standards we place on other professions."

In the late 1970s, Goldman became increasingly frustrated with traditional methods of dealing with police misconduct and began advocating for the need for a statewide system to track police misconduct in Missouri.

Goldman began working closely with Clarence Harmon, then Commander of Internal Affairs of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, to support a licensing revocation law in Missouri. Harmon testified at legislative hearings in Jefferson City that in 90 percent of the cases when an officer was fired or resigned for misconduct in St. Louis City, the officer would apply to a department in St. Louis County, sometimes literally just days later.

Backed with the support of the police departments in St. Louis and Kansas City, Goldman quarterbacked the efforts to pass a decertification law in Missouri and began educating key community leaders and state legislators about the state's inability to keep bad officers off the streets. He contacted everyone from leaders at the ACLU to officials at police departments to reporters at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Goldman served as the catalyst behind the passage of Missouri's statutory revocation law in 1988. The new law allowed the Missouri Department of Public Safety to revoke the license of 45 bad officers over the course of one year. Goldman was also instrumental in the passage of similar laws in Illinois, Indiana and Washington state.

Over the years, Goldman's research has indicated that sexual misconduct is the leading reason for loss of police licenses, more prevalent than thefts or beatings. Goldman offers a landmark series of cases as disturbing examples of this trend. The outcome of these cases truly epitomizes "Scholarship in Action," as it demonstrates how the Missouri decertification law Goldman helped get on the books directly resulted in the removal of bad police officers.

After having sexual encounters with teenage girls in hot tubs, four police officers in Webster Groves were fired from the force in 2002. Two of those officers got hired in neighboring communities. But the decertification law in Missouri allowed the Department of Public Safety to revoke their licenses and remove the two remaining officers from the force.

When Goldman began his "crusade" nearly 30 years ago, 15 states were without decertification laws. Now only six states remain. He is currently working with state legislators and community leaders in Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York to adopt revocation laws in those states, all of which have strong union support against police licensing.

Goldman regularly speaks at national conferences, including the Congressional Black Caucus and the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training. He is also frequently asked to speak at the U.S. Department of Justice and before state legislative committees about police misconduct and decertification.

Over the years, Goldman has cultivated relationships with reporters, updating and informing them about important cases and violations, because he believes the media play a leading role in educating society about these issues.

But often it takes a staggering story, like the one that unfolded on a November night in Florida, to put the issue under the national spotlight.

In 1990, two West Palm Beach undercover police officers stopped a young man on a busy highway for hitchhiking. The officers killed the man by crushing his throat and breaking most of ribs. The two officers were tried on charges of police brutality, but were found not guilty on all counts.

Goldman served as an expert source in an acclaimed "Dateline NBC" investigation that tracked the backgrounds of the two officers through four states and eight different law enforcement agencies. One worked in five departments in six years, until a sketchy history of drug abuse and brutality complaints led to his dismissal from the force in Tennessee.

The other officer had an even more troubling record of violence in the nearby Florida town of Riviera Beach. Just five months before joining the West Palm Beach force, the officer beat and blinded a man after arresting him for a small amount of cocaine. No action was ever taken against the officer.

"The tragedy to me is [these officers] have been shown to be unfit in Riviera Beach and Chattanooga, and the fact that they will continue to be allowed to serve as police officers again is a real tragedy," Goldman explained to "Dateline NBC." "It was avoidable, and I'm afraid we are going to have many more avoidable deaths like this until we as a society say it's time to take this problem seriously."

Since that notorious Florida case, Goldman has been actively working with journalists at The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Los Angeles Times, The Associated Press and NPR as well as major dailies across the country to keep national attention focused on police misconduct. He also recently spoke at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference.

But the notion that those Florida officers could move to another state and still work in law enforcement is fueling Goldman's latest research. His ultimate goal is to help create a federally mandated national databank that tracks repeated incidents of police misconduct to prevent bad police officers from moving to departments in different states. Currently, 26 states are contributing to a national registry that contains more than 10,000 police officers who have been stripped of their law enforcement licenses.

"There are incidents of police officers going to 14 different departments," Goldman says. "Most people don't realize that these issues exist in their state. I see my work as preventive, and it's my role as a law professor to educate society about these troubling issues."

Researching How Race Impacts Criminal Law in Urban Communities

A young African-American man is sentenced to a lengthy prison term for possessing a small amount of crack while a white college student receives a non-custodial sentence for possessing the same weight of powder cocaine. A homeless veteran spends a holiday weekend locked behind bars for sleeping in the streets to keep him from disturbing the beauty of the downtown business district.

"Criminal law offers endless examples in which different economic and ethnic groups receive disparate treatment," explains Associate Professor Eric J. Miller. "Understanding the real-world application of criminal law raises important and difficult questions about the values that underline our system of criminal justice."

Miller has dedicated his legal career to studying how race and economic status influence criminal law in urban communities. Most recently, his research has focused on how criminal law affects urban communities through the War on Drugs. By the end of the 1980s, the War on Drugs was the primary cause of increased incarceration in America. Drug courts were created as a response to the cycle of incarceration-release-recidivism that filled prisons with low-level drug users.

Miller advances his scholarly work into action by raising important questions about the effectiveness of drug courts in a variety of articles as well as to judges and legislators. He aims to increase awareness about the drawbacks of drug courts, especially how these courts tend to further criminalize urban communities.

"Drug courts were an attempt to rethink the War on Drugs, but they do it with judicial guerilla tactics that over criminalize urban and minority communities," Miller explains. "Drug courts represent a real-world example of the ways we can use sociological and criminal data to look at criminal procedure."

Miller's main objection to drug courts is that they actually channel non-addicts and low-level users into the criminal justice system rather than diverting offenders out of the system.

"Before, low-level users often were not charged on the front end; the police would let them go because they knew low-level possession cases would not be prosecuted," he says.

Miller explains that educating society about the downside of drug courts is more important than ever as these courts continue to receive millions of dollars in federal funding. "At the bare minimum, we need to be questioning if the government is using all of this money wisely," Miller offers. "And the answer is we could do a lot better."

According to Miller, the other troubling aspect of drug courts is that the judge takes on multiple roles as a confessor, parole officer, cheerleader and mentor. The judge — not the probation officer or treatment center — becomes the focal point of the treatment process.

"The judges play the role of super nanny," Miller says. "They literally give the drug addicts time-outs by sending them to jail, or if they do well they get candy, gold stars and hugs at their graduation ceremony. It creates a very weird dynamic between the judge and the offender."

Drug courts, like re-entry and other problem-solving courts, result in a massive expansion of judicial influence on drug policy and social regulation.

"Drug courts don't address the central problem facing drug addicts in segregated urban areas: The failure of the government to adequately provide access to medical, educational, housing and other social services," Miller explains. "The therapeutic model attempts to convince offenders that these social failings are of little consequence, instead the problem is simply their life choices."

Miller is addressing similar concerns with the recent expansion of re-entry courts, which have built upon the claimed success of the problem-solving approach used in drug courts, by educating the media, judges and the legislators on these issues.

"We need to actively include more partners in the discussion of urban drug policy," Miller says." And we need to offer solutions that address the real-world racial and ethnic disparities that underline our system of criminal justice."

Championing Health Care in the Heartland

It is stories like Richard Williams, a cattle rancher from Tipton, a small rural town in central Missouri that stir Professor Sidney D. Watson's passion for community-driven research.

The Williams family spends 15 percent of their annual income on a bare-bones emergency health care plan, but Richard hasn't seen a doctor for 28 years, and his wife, Kate, rarely receives medical treatment either.

"Health-care expenses are tearing at the fabric of rural America," explains Watson, who has spent her legal career specializing in health law and health care access for the poor. In addition to extensively writing on racial and ethnic health care disparities and health care access for the poor, she advocates on behalf of low-income people as both a law school professor and as a lawyer.

In order to obtain health insurance, many Missouri families like the Williams, are forced to have family members take jobs off the farm or ranch, which are often far away and require long commutes, to places such as convenience stores, Wal-Mart or even state prisons.

"This takes time away from their families," Watson says. "They spend less time in their schools, churches and community — it tears at the very heart of what makes a rural community a rural community."

Throughout her legal career, Watson has been conducting community-based research and then advancing those scholarly findings into action by educating the media, state legislators and community and academic groups with solutions to pressing health care issues, ranging from improved access to Medicaid services for people with disabilities to advocating access to health care services for the homeless.

Professor Watson's latest research focuses on affordable health care for Missouri farmers and ranchers. "Missouri has a completely unrestrained, unfettered, unregulated individual insurance market, which allows insurance companies to charge whatever they want, exclude pre-existing conditions and refuse to insure anyone, leaving people holding the bag," she explains.

Farmers and ranchers are an important part of Missouri's population and state's economy — Missouri has 104,500 farms more than any other state besides Texas. But many of them are drowning in debt due to high insurance deductibles and premiums; some families spend more than 15 percent of their income on health care costs.

The Access Project, a national resource center for local communities working to improve health care access, partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2007 to survey non-corporate farm and ranch operators in seven Great Plains states.

Under Watson's direction, the Center for Health Law Studies joined forces with the Missouri Rural Crisis Center and Missouri Jobs with Justice to urge The Access Project to analyze the Great Plains survey results for Missouri.
The collaborative effort resulted in the 2007 report, "Health Care in the Heartland," co-authored by Watson. The findings underscore the devastating effect high health care costs impose on Missouri farmers and ranchers, including how those costs play a major role in forcing them off their land.

From speaking at town hall meetings in rural communities across Missouri to meeting face-to-face with legislators in Jefferson City to holding press conferences, Watson truly exemplifies "Scholarship in Action."

She not only educates Missouri legislators and the media about how the private insurance markets is failing Missouri farmers and ranchers, but she also makes expert recommendations regarding solutions, such as increasing access to public insurance and allowing farmers and ranchers to benefit from health insurance pools.

"Missouri policy makers must realize that reliance on private, individual insurance alone cannot provide a solution to the challenge of ensuring access to affordable comprehensive care," she explains. "The private market is not working for Missouri farm and ranch families."

The findings in "Health Care in the Heartland" reveal that family farmers are hit harder by health-care costs than most other professions. One out of five Missouri ranchers and farmers report that health care costs contribute to their financial problems, including difficulty paying off loans and delays in business investments. Even worse, nearly 15 percent of Missouri farmers and ranchers report outstanding debt caused by medical bills and at least 10 percent have delayed care because of costs.

To help raise awareness and educate society about these issues, Watson spoke, alongside the Williams family, at a crowded press conference last fall in Columbia, Mo., to promote the findings in "Health Care in the Heartland."

"This report shows how critical good health care policies are for rural communities," Watson told reporters. "It's important to provide policy solutions that can effectively make health care more affordable and accessible. By sharing the stories we hear everyday and by raising awareness about these issues, we can help control costs and protect rural families in Missouri."